


fifteen days of fatt 2019

by cynical_optimist



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: 15 Days of FatT, Gen, Other, warnings in notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 08:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18049397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: day one: forget - Fourteen, and the things they have lost.day three: drifting - Fourteen between the Body Politic and Carcanet's Ironclad.day four: shelter - Ballad and Lumen as childhood friends.





	fifteen days of fatt 2019

**Author's Note:**

> posting these every few days!
> 
> mentions of character death in days one and three re: fourteen.

_**day one: forget** _

 

There are things that Fourteen loses, and things that they keep, and sometimes, the line blurs between the two in ways that are difficult to think about. Did they like peas as a child? What were the shapes of their parents’ smiles? Did they ever own a dog? If they concentrate, they can recall the sharp sound of barking— but their marks so often have pets, it’s too easily muddled into the rest.

Sometimes, they taste a dish or talk to someone and there is a dull pluck in their chest, like someone playing at an ill-strung instrument. It is familiar, and irreparably distant. _I have lived this moment_ , it mutters, garbled— and they have no memory of it, no sights or sounds behind the muddy instinct.

When they look at Tender, they remember— something. She is important, beyond the connection they had mistakenly attributed to a lost love, beyond the contract on her life they had signed time and time again. They have left Miss’s Castlerose, left the killing and the dying in more bodies they can remember— though they know that this one, too, will one day falter— and still they feel that importance, that knowledge that when they are around her, their heart stammers and settles.

And— yes, they know that they be dreaming of a relationship they want, filling in details where none exist. But they swear, sometimes, that they know the taste of Tender’s favourite lipstick, that they have felt her hair under their fingertips, that she has whispered sweet nothings into their ear and they have whispered them back. They are busy now with assignments and adjudication, but these half-remembered sense memories, devoid of cause or context, linger in the back of their thoughts, rising when they think of her.

 

 

_**day three: drifting** _

 

 

This time, it is peaceful— no one is tearing them apart, there are no guns pointed at them, no fires or knives or any of the countless ways their previous bodies had faced and died to. They breathe in, and breathe out, warm in bed, inkstained fingers around a pen. And then they are drifting, drawn out of their body in the space between breaths, between lives— now, a digital ghost floating between all they have been and will ever be. They drift, and trail their life behind them, and do not breathe but do exist, a tangled set of memories ambling along the Twilight Mirage toward another body, another name, another self— themself, in reiteration, again and again and again until the end.

 

 

_**day four: shelter** _

 

 

 

It’s early evening and Perigean is busy, the noise of people moving around as they finish work and begin to head home echoing around the ship. Sometimes, someone will rush by in a buggy so loud he can hardly hear the clumsy chords of Lumen’s guitar. They’re playing with wet fingers, wet hair dripping onto the instrument, and Ballad isn’t sure if Lumen’s mom would be okay with that but she’s not here and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, anyway.

“It’s good,” Ballad says, close to Lumen so they can hear him. Ballad’s dad had given them both towels when they’d come running in from their trip to the pool, dripping wet, and they’ve piled them on top of each other around their shoulders, for warmth. He’d tried to make them go inside, too, and now Ballad’s pretty sure they only have a few minutes left before he tells them they have to, but right now they have the bustle of the ship around them, busy even in the residential areas.

Thunder claps, and Lumen looks up with a grin. “Mom said I’m her favourite student,” they say, wet fingers slipping a little on the strings.

“You said that, like, two hours ago,” Ballad groans.

“Well maybe,” Lumen replies, turning up their nose, “you would be her favourite. If you didn’t stop your lessons—”

Ballad groans again, bumping Lumen’s shoulder. “But I have _you_ to play,” he says. “Besides, I go to lessons sometimes.”

“Mom says she never sees you anymore.” Lumen grins so wide Ballad can see where they lost a tooth last week. “And Mama says she can’t even remember what your face looks like.”

“I sleep over all the time!” Ballad protests, and he’d probably try to tickle them but they’re holding their guitar, and he already convinced Lumen to jump into the pool fully dressed today— though they did pull him after them! — so that might not be a good idea. Instead, he bumps their shoulder again, harder this time, and they laugh as they lean away, clutching their instrument to their chest.

Behind them, the door opens.

“Okay, kiddos,” Litany says. “Time’s up. Come in before you catch another cold.”

Ballad and Lumen turn around, gathering up their towels from where they’d started to slip off their shoulders.

“Hey, Echo,” Lumen greets, Ballad’s tiny sibling peeking out from behind his dad’s legs.

“Hi,” Ballad says, too, and Echo’s face brightens up, scrunching into a full-faced smile. They wave back, then duck back inside and out of sight.

“Your moms are fine with you staying,” Litany tells Lumen. “You can borrow some of Ballad’s pajamas.

“Sleepover!” Ballad cheers.

“Sleepover!” they repeat, and the two of them rush inside.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @spiderangst or tumblr @boxesfullofthoughts <33


End file.
